Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Wednesday, 17 August 2022 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
For a country like Sri Lanka that has international women’s cricket fixtures few and far between, the historic first-ever Women’s Future Tours Program (FTP) revealed by the International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday affords the chance to play more white ball matches over a period of three years.
The FTP outlines the international cricket calendar, including ICC events and bilateral international series. The women’s FTP reveals the international obligations for all sides until the end of April in 2025, leading up to the ICC Women’s World Cup in India.
In total there will be over 300 international women’s games played during the next period, which features a total of seven Test matches, 135 ODIs and 159 T20Is.
Teams will play three-match bilateral ODI series as part of the 2022-25 ICC Women’s Championships, ahead of the next women’s 50-over World Cup in India in 2025. Many of those three-game ODI series are accompanied by corresponding T20I series, with some teams opting to play five-game T20I series alongside the ICC Women’s Championships fixtures. All bilateral T20I matches count towards respective team rankings, which in turn serves as a primary mechanism for determining the teams that qualify for ICC global events.
Sri Lanka’s FTP sees four series at home and four away within a period of 2022-24. Each series comprises three ODIs and three T20Is against each of the eight countries Sri Lanka are scheduled to play. Australia is the only country that has not given Sri Lanka a series of the ten countries that are in the FTP.
Sri Lanka’s matches commence in May-June 2022 against Pakistan away and end with a series against Ireland also away in July-August 2024.
In total Sri Lanka will play 48 white ball matches (24 ODIs and 24 T20Is) which is a great boon for our women cricketers who have been starved of continuous international cricket fixtures. This surfeit of cricket is bound to give much needed exposure to the players and improve their international playing standards to a great degree.
The following is Sri Lanka’s ODI and T20I fixtures according to the Women’s FTP:
